Most casual aviation observers have followed the progress of new airplanes like Boeing's 787, or Airbus' A380. But for the hard-core fans, Monday offered a reason for excitement: the first flight of Bombardier's new CSeries jet.

Taking off at 12:22 p.m. ET from Montreal's Mirabel Airport, the CS100 -- a regional jet that can carry between 108 and 125 passengers -- took to the sky for a two-and-a-half hour journey. A big part of the test flight was to see how the airplane's Pratt & Whitney PW1524G engines performed.

To date, according to Airchive.com, which was on hand for the first flight, the CSeries program has cost Bombardier about $3.5 billion. It is hoping that airlines around the world will adopt the plane instead of regional jet competitors like Mitsubishi's Regional Jet; Irkut's MC-21;Embraer's new E-jet E2 series; and even Airbus' A320 and Boeing's 737.

According to Airchive, airlines around the world have ordered a total of 177 CS100s and its larger, 130- to 160-passenger counterpart, the CS300.